Environment America is the new home of U.S. PIRG’s environmental work.
Washington,
D.C.—For the first time ever, the Environmental Protection Agency today
finalized two rollbacks to the nation’s premier toxic pollution
disclosure program, the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). The changes
announced on Monday, December 18 enable facilities to withhold
currently reported information about toxic chemicals and restricts
public access to information about toxic pollution.
“EPA’s actions take us back to the dark ages when the public knew
nothing about toxic releases and when companies couldn’t be held
accountable for pollution that threatened public health,” said U.S.
PIRG staff attorney Alex Fidis. “EPA is substituting a don’t ask, don’t
tell policy for a program that works to protect public health and the
environment.”
The TRI is one of the most successful federal environmental programs,
and has been praised by environmental organizations, industry, and
state and local governments. While the TRI requires companies only to
publicly disclose toxic chemical use and pollution, EPA credits the
program with contributing to a 40% reduction in toxic pollution over an
18-year period. In addition to encouraging voluntary toxic reductions,
the TRI provides valuable data that is used by the public, firefighters
and emergency responders, investors, researchers, and state and local
governments.
EPA’s first change to the TRI will limit the amount of data disclosed
by authorizing companies to use or release four to ten times more toxic
chemicals before they are required to submit a report. The second part
of the rule enables companies to withhold information about the use and
production of dangerous persistent bioaccumulative toxics. EPA had also
planned to change the frequency of submission of reports from once a
year to once every two years, but abandoned this proposal in response
to intense opposition.
The final rule announced today is opposed by public health and
environmental organizations, governmental agencies in 23 states, the
U.S. Conference of Mayors, and more than 122,000 individual public
commentors. In May 2005, the House of Representatives voted to block
EPA from implementing the TRI rollbacks, but the Senate was unable to
consider a similar measure before EPA finalized the changes.
“The fundamental purpose of TRI is to inform the public about toxic
pollution and to drive voluntary toxic reductions that protect public
health by putting polluting companies under a public microscope,” said
Fidis. “Restricting public access to toxic data undermines the purpose
and effectiveness of TRI and is contrary to the best interests of the
public.”
